busy times

It's been a very busy few days since Tuesday's post. I'm happy to report some items I have now checked off the "start up my new business to do list" include: decided on company name, filed DBA, opened business bank account, established EIN with the IRS, registed domain name, set up email account, designed a website and found a (back up) place to host a Parent Workshop. Still open items include: secure a better (i.e. free) location to hold classes, get TX sales tax permit, order business cards, advertise class info and brush up on material. At least those are of most immediate priority!

Last night Jim & Spencer went to a birthday party for JB's three year old son Jack at the Children's Museum. In keeping up with the 'big kids' there, Spencer got to do a lot of activities outside of the Tot*Spot, including getting soaked head to toe by dumping a bucket of water on himself in the water play zone outside. Meanwhile, I was way up in The Woodlands as a volunteer judge for SCI://TECH science fair. It does give you some great feelings to see how 7th graders can put together an depth experiement: formulating a hyposthesis, designing the test set up, collecting data, analyzing data and drawing out results and conclusions. My assigned category to judge was health & medicine, and I loved to ask the kids what prompted them to pursue their particular project. One girl's experiement was to figure out which drink (water, coke, caffeine-free coke, or gatorade) would send you running to the bathroom the quickest, because she and her family were never able to make it through an entire movie without a break! Or the boy who conducted a taste test because he wanted to show his mom how cigarettes were deadening her taste buds. Or the girl who wanted to find the most effective antacid on the market because her mom suffered heartburn when pregnant with a younger sibling. Despite all of the publicity about the overall decline of excellence in the technology sector of our country, it was very encouraging to see what the minds of tomorrow will bring.